"I regard the murders of land dealers as a direct blow to the entire peace process and to the spirit of peace between the two sides," Netanyahu said. "The leading figures in the Palestinian Authority . . . have clearly expressed their support for the murders."

Peace talks between the two sides have been on hold since March, after Israel began construction of Jewish housing in disputed East Jerusalem.

In an interview with Israel Army Radio, Netanyahu said an ongoing Israeli police investigation points blame at senior figures in Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's self-rule government.

Senior Palestinian officials, including Arafat, have condemned the murders. Others, however, such as Palestinian Justice Minister Freih Abu Medein and Muslim cleric Ekrama Sabri, the PLO-appointed mufti of Jerusalem, have openly declared that any Arab selling Palestinian land to Israelis is a traitor who should face the death penalty.

In the last month, three Arab land dealers have been slain and their bodies dumped in Ramallah, an Arab-ruled West Bank town north of Jerusalem.

A fourth is missing, and a fifth narrowly escaped Saturday when Israeli police intervened in his kidnapping and arrested six Palestinians, four of them later named by the government as members of the Palestinian security apparatus.

In addition, Israeli security officials say a secret report they obtained shows the self-rule Palestinian Authority had drawn up a hit list of 16 land dealers who had sold or were about to sell land to Jews, according to the Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz.

Three of the 16 targets were Palestinian land dealers who already had been killed, and the report underlines a verbal policy of the Palestine Liberation Organization to kill them all, the paper said.

Jerusalem District police were reported to have evidence linking the head of Arafat's Ramallah security forces--a man identified as the Palestinian West Bank general intelligence chief, Col. Tawfik Tirawi--to the killings of two of the three land dealers and to the kidnapping of another dealer over the weekend, Ha'aretz said.

On Monday, the Arab land dealer supposedly rescued by Israel on Saturday night denied he had been abducted, and his son accused the Jewish state of exploiting the incident for political gain.

The Palestinian Authority also came out firmly in defense of Tirawi, who by some accounts is turning into a new local hero in the West Bank.

Ahmed Abdel Rahman, secretary general of the Palestinian Authority, told Israel Radio that Palestinian police are continuing to investigate the slayings and that Israel was trying to exploit them to put pressure on the authority.

With such battle lines drawn, the controversy stems from the larger struggle for Jerusalem. Arafat walked out of peace talks in March after Netanyahu ordered bulldozers to break ground for new Jewish housing in disputed East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967 and claimed by both sides as their capital.

The debate over final claims to land is the key dispute in talks on a permanent settlement, now suspended but due to be concluded by May 1999.

The killing of Arab land dealers has sullied the image of the Palestinian Authority at a time when Arafat had gained world sympathy protesting Israel's unilateral actions before the final status talks.

Netanyahu met Monday with top security officials, including Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, Minister of Public Security Avigdor Kahalani and members of the General Security Service, known by its Hebrew acronym Shin Bet, to devise a counter-strategy to the killings.

Afterward, the prime minister's office released a statement declaring the government will issue arrest warrants for those suspected of involvement.

The statement added that Israel intends to work in international forums to draw attention to the infringement of human rights by the Palestinian Authority, including the violations Israel says the authority has committed in the peace process.